Yasuo Kuniyoshi
'Dancing' — 'les années folles' Paris Masterwork, 1928
1928

Name: 'Dancing' — 'les années folles' Paris Masterwork, 1928
Brand: Yasuo Kuniyoshi
Price: 9500 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, 'Dancing', lithograph, 1928, edition 30, Davis L-29. Signed, dated, and numbered '8/30' in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, printed on cream chine appliqué on heavy off-white wove backing; the full sheet with wide margins (1 3/8 to 4 7/8 inches), in excellent condition. Printed by Desjobert, Paris. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Impressions of this work are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi Museum (Japan). ABOUT THIS WORK The French economy boomed from 1921 until the Great Depression reached Paris in 1931. This period called 'Les années folles' or the 'Crazy Years', saw Paris reestablished as a capital of art, music, literature, and cinema. Paris in the 1920s and 1930s was the home and meeting place of some of the world's most prominent painters, sculptors, composers, dancers, poets, and writers. For those in the arts, it was, as Ernest Hemingway described it, "A moveable feast". Paris was home to an exceptional number of galleries, art dealers, and a network of wealthy patrons who offered commissions and held salons. Pablo Picasso, perhaps the most famous artist in Paris, shared renown with a remarkable group of others, including the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, the Belgian René Magritte, the Italian Amedeo Modigliani, the Russian émigré Marc Chagall, the Catalan and Spanish artists Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Juan Gris, and the German surrealist and Dadaist Max Ernst. The American artist Man Ray, who arrived in Paris in 1921, created a virtual photographic pantheon of who's who in Paris between the Wars. Several major artistic movements flourished in Paris at this time, including Cubism, Surrealism, and Art Deco. The American art patron Gertrude Stein, a resident of Paris, played an important role in encouraging and buying works of Picasso and other artists of the period. This masterwork, produced during Kuniyoshi's second visit to Paris in 1928, was chosen as the cover illustration for the catalogue raisonné 'Yasuo Kuniyoshi: The Complete Graphic Work' by Richard A. Davis. It is also reproduced in 'Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s Women', Tom Wolf, Pomegranate Artbooks, 1993. ABOUT THE ARTIST Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1893-1953) combines in his work a subtle blend of his native Japanese heritage with western modernist vocabulary and folk art idioms. Born in Okayama, Japan, Kuniyoshi immigrated with his family to Los Angeles in 1906. He moved to New York in 1910 where he attended the National Academy of Design, the Robert Henri School, the Independent School, and the Art Students League. The League's summer school first brought him to Woodstock as a student in 1918. The following summers he worked in Ogunquit, Maine, where he was given the use of a studio by the publisher and art patron Hamilton Easter Field. The artists in Field’s circle were strongly influenced by American folk painting, which struck a resonant chord for Kuniyoshi—its two-dimensional space recalling traditional Japanese painting and prints. By 1921 he had developed a highly personal style blending elements of folk, Japanese, and modernist art, imbued with a whimsical fantasy all his own. In 1922 Kuniyoshi had the first of eight one-man shows at the Daniel Gallery. He visited Paris for ten months in 1925 and returned for six months in 1928. This second stay was his most prolific period as a lithographer. Working at the renowned Desjobert atelier (lithography workshop), Kuniyoshi was educated in the new lithographic techniques then current in Europe. Although Kuniyoshi worked in etching and drypoint, lithography became his preferred printmaking medium for its possibilities of both subtle and dramatic expressiveness. In 1930 Kuniyoshi moved to Woodstock where he was an active member of the artistic community there for the rest of his life. He became a teacher at the Art Students League in 1933, both in New York and in Woodstock. For most of Kuniyoshi’s life, until the passage of the 1953 McCarron Act, people of Japanese birth were not allowed to become citizens of the United States. World War II was a painful time for the artist; although he had lived in this country for thirty-five years, he was considered an enemy alien. He worked actively promoting the Allies’ cause against fascism but felt deeply grieved when the atomic bombs were dropped on his native Japan. From that time on, much of his work was marked by a sense of sadness and disillusionment, in contrast to the cheerful naivité of his earlier output. Kuniyoshi was a member and often an officer of many liberal artists organizations, a founder of Artists Equity, and a winner of major awards and prizes for his art. In 1932, his mural, a wall decoration titled Exotic Flowers, was installed in the second-mezzanine ladies lounge at Radio City Music Hall in Rockefeller Center, New York City. Described as "combining the aesthetics of East and West" and a "magical garden evoking his world of fantasy with delicately rendered larger-than-life botanical designs", the floral motif was enthusiastically received by the public. Kuniyoshi was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935. The Smithsonian American Art Museum held a major exhibition of the artist's work 'The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi' in 2015 (April 2 - August 29), describing the artist as "a preeminent 20th-century modernist whose talents and contributions rivaled those of his contemporaries including Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Stuart Davis". Kuniyoshi's work is held in virtually every major American art museum.

Creator:

Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889 - 1953, Japanese)

Creation Year:

1928

Dimensions:

Height: 11.5 in (29.21 cm)Width: 10.13 in (25.74 cm)

Medium:

Lithograph

Movement & Style:

American Modern

Period:

1920-1929